ogs of yellow cedar burning in the fireplace. He was posed in his favorite attitude, half-sitting, half-reclining among the cushions on a low couch of red fox skins. But while he told tales

terious, all knowing, all powerful in the eyes of the simple natives of the North, had made him fully alive to the dramatic po

er-in-law, to spend a few weeks in the quarters back of the store, where they were

uld unfailingly put a shot in a bull's eye at twenty paces and handle an oar in a small boat, yet a woman who could look sweetly domestic as she knitted on a garment for her small son. To Paul Kilbuck, as to all domineering men who scoff at matrimony, there was something i

tle hands she had, white with nails of rosy pink. Little white hands! The words kept singing through his consciousness. So long had brown hands done his bidding up here in the North tha

sweet pang that had thrilled him. The voice of Borelan

d evidently been thinking of the White Chief's last story as he sat rubbing

tossed away a cigaret

now, got it from the natives of that section and the story runs that an Aleut and his wife were banished from their village for some crime, set adrift in a bidarka, a skin boat. Instead of perishing, as their kinsmen intended, the pair turned up a year later with a tale of a marvelous island many days' paddling to the eastward. On this island, th

d!" His brown eyes glowed and the White Chief noted

rkas. According to the story they knocked about up and down the North Pacific from Kodiak to Sitka for several months-

buck, didn't they ever

e, for the most part a lazy, rum-drinking lot, you know. To them riches meant sea-otter skins, and they managed by various devilish methods-I can't say more about them in your presence, Mrs. Boreland-to enslave the entire Aleut nation to do their hunting. They gave them a little-and a mighty little-trad

ck, waving a careless hand. "As I said there may be no other foundation for it. It has come down now for

the flaming logs fil

ting quietly on the dog's head, his eyes adream as

tching her. Never in all his varied amorous experiences had a woman's eyes held such a look for t

virile years were slipping by-he was surprised and disturbed how often this thought had been with him of late. Shou

nd had crossed to her husband's chair. Her hand rested on his broad shoulder and t

. Kilbuck, don't get him interested in any mythical island. We've been gone from the States six months now, and I want him to go back for the

ved to come close and gaze into his pale, black-lashed eyes. It was an impulse akin to that which urges people to fling themselves from great heights; to peer into abandoned, stagnant wells. . . . He had an idea that she knew he saw this, for he had watched her face flush under his glance as though at the thought of having dishonored herself by sharing with him some guilty secret. He saw that she was uncomfortable in accepting his hospitality.

orming a plan suggested by Ellen Foreland's words. He might develop it la

replace, slipping without effort in

e has his dreams of a mine of gold, but I-" he hesitated, his voice taking on a whimsical softness, "but I, in my Northern solitude, have my d

charred logs in the fireplace dropp

briskly now as it putting aside deliberately his own longings. "In this

p questioningly the

f the coast here. Cape Katleean is the nearest land. The Japan current gives i

ere?" interrupted

h-drinking, lazy lot and the farm wasn't a success. But Add-'em-up Sam, a bookkeeper I used to have, spent a winter there. He told me many things about the place.

ust both hands into his pockets and

e Thlinget for ruby sand, which in itself suggests possibilities. Ruby sand is a gold carrier!" There was a note of enthusiasm in Boreland's voice, but as he noticed the look on hi

o the store cut short his speech as an

hat big old Indian, Swimming Wol

outraged shake of her head loosening the ribbon that bound her hair. "I hate this place, Shane!" she cried, turning swiftly to her brother-in-law. "I wish we were all b

ed that something had happened which endangered the stay of his visitors. He rose to place a chair

so bad as you think. Sit down and tell me

er with Swimming Wolf. Her slim hands gestured. Above her flushed cheeks her eyes flash

said, one could never tell about a white woman. Here was a situation he would have to handle with care. Here was

the girl in spite of herself. "An Indian, you know, never really grows up. Even though he has the body of a man, he still keeps the heart of a child. Now when you were little, Miss Jean, don't you

floor with an arm about Kobuk's neck

d, with eager, nodding head, "and

g. She inclined her hea

, too, and so did the other natives who gathered about you,-children, all of them. Swimming Wolf, the clumsy siwash,

corners of Jean's mouth. Seeing it, t

nd kusk-i-a-tu-very sad-if he knew he had offended you. As a matter of fact,"-the trader laughed-"the Wolf admires you and in his pr

ed up inq

y any little girl who takes his fancy. He pays for her while he is strong a

shment from Ellen and her

black fox skins, which are worth perhaps three thousand dollars. He wanted to know if I would arrange with the Big White Man-yo

iolin playing in such a way! But mercy," she added, after they had all laughed over the incident, "I must run away upstairs and put on some fo

les and soft little feet. He surveyed her with a look that slowly, appraisingly, stripped her body of its garments and swept her from her bare feet to her face and back again. The girl caught it. Conscious, for th

g she had again taken up. "Jean certainly seems to be tumbling in and out of adventure

break away from the cut and dried sameness of school life. Darned if it do

eated himself in silence, tilting his sombrero to the back of his head-the only concession to convention he e

d, "seein' if there was anything a-doin' in the way o' local sin,